The calculation does not include troops on the lines of
communications, or tell us bow many men of military age are employed in Germany on work of a military character and on railways. As regards the casualties, the estimate is un- doubtedly very much lower than those hitherto accepted—the generality placing them at double the figure here given—and if compared with the Russian, French, Belgian, and British losses in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 'does not encourage reliance on the process of attrition. According to a French official estimate published some time ago, the German losses on the two fronts amounted to 1,800,000 by the middle of January, or, deducting the wounded who returned to the fighting line, at the rate of over 3,000,000 for the twelvemonth. The estimate now published halves that total. All depends on the data on which it is based, and the difficulty of arriving at the truth is sufficiently illustrated by the fact that since January the German news- papers have been forbidden to publish the gross total lists of casualties.
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